Tag Archives: Robert Moses

FILM REVIEW The story of Robert Moses versus Jane Jacobs has grown to such an epic scale by this point that it scarcely represents reality anymore. Their legacies have taken on super heroic form — the Avengers of New York City history, if you will — representing the basic evils of corrupt government and the essential good of humanity in protecting its citizens from distress and exploitation.

Many might walk by a certain aspect of New York City life that remains troubling and may, to this day, immediately attribute it to Moses, while strolling through a bustling neighborhood and thanking Jacobs for her inspiration. These instincts aren’t wrong but they are reductive.

A new documentary seeks to keep Moses and Jacobs in the realm of the mythical. Citizen Jane: Battle For the City, about the critical fight against urban renewal in the 1950s and 60s, plays out in New York City, of course, but its title pointedly leaves out the location. The movie is bookended (perhaps burdened) with a greater context — their fight now possibly reverberates into the struggles of all modern cosmopolitan life and even the fate of our planet.

You may be quite familiar with the main players and their biographies. Moses, the city’s parks commissioner, began to amass great power and influence after World War II, using federal money and modernist ideas to develop urban renewal programs that would rewrite the landscape New York City. Jacobs, “just a housewife” as she was later described by Moses and his cronies, was a journalist and urban theorist who evolved the fight to save the integrity of her own Greenwich Village neighborhood into one to preserve the vital characteristics of the city.

Fred W. McDarrah/Getty Images

Citizen Jane brings these stories alive using a wonderful assortment of film footage and interviews. Without a doubt, the greatest pleasures of this film are the actual voices of its two subjects.

Moses is at his most cantankerous here, often growling out the defense of his own plans. He describes slums as “a cancerous growth,” complains about people who don’t want to relocate, then labels his critics as in “opposition to everything that’s progressive.”

But Jacobs can be vitriolic herself of course. Fortunately there’s an abundance of interviews which the film uses to narrate Jabobs’ personal journey from a passive journalistic voice to a crusader against, in her own words, the “full flowering of the expressway power city.”

Rendering of the Lower Manhattan Expressway. Courtesy Library of Congress

The film, directed by Matt Tyranuer, makes bold and sometimes ominous choices of presenting the stark contrasts of changing urban life, building towards the ultimate confrontation — the development of the Lower Manhattan Expressway.

Even here, the director makes a wise decision to let original news and promotional film footage from the period speak for itself. While it is true that the central conflicts presented within Citizen Jane are truly modern and universal, there’s just nothing like hearing the voices of 1960s New Yorkers, complaining about Robert Moses and afraid of losing their homes, to help bring those points across.

Citizen Jane: Battle for the City
Directed by Matt Tyrnauer
Altimeter Films
Now playing in theaters and On Demand

Seventy-five years ago, in 1942, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses convinced Mayor Fiorello La Guardia to move his family from their home in East Harlem (Fifth Avenue and 109th Street) to an old mansion in Carl Schurz Park. It was the former home to merchant Archibald Gracie, built in 1799, to look out at the ships of the East River and the turbulent waters of Hell Gate.

Below: Gracie Mansion in 1945. Needless to say, that chainlink fence has been replaced!

Gracie Mansion is known as ‘the little White House’. In truth, it’s yellow now, not white, but it was indeed small and perhaps a bit unsuited for its expanded new purposes. In 1966, thanks to Susan Wagner (Mayor Robert Wagner’s wife), the house was suitably enlarged with a ballroom and two reception rooms. It’s largely because of her and subsequent custodians that the mansion has now struck a perfect balance — an historical home that can vividly represent the City of New York and still comfortably keep a family.

Only one mayor has excused himself from his tradition — Michael Bloomberg — who turned the residence into a house museum, opening up Gracie Mansion to tours and even public events. After all, Bloomberg has a little change in his pocket, shall we say, and his actual home on East 79th Street was close by.

But Mayor Bill De Blasio has chosen to adhere to tradition and move his family into Gracie Mansion. In honor of that revived tradition, Gracie Mansion Conservancy is presenting a series of art installations in the house, celebrating its unique place in American history.

The latest installation New York 1942presents a wide range of artifacts (59 in all) reflecting life in the city during World War II, a time-warping decor quietly expressing the house’s many historical layers. (An exhibition last year displayed relics from 1799, the year Gracie completed his mansion.)

In the entranceway, you’re met with prints of Norman Rockwell’s striking Four Freedoms, illustrating the accompanying freedoms of speech, worship, want and fear as outlined in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s now-iconic 1941 speech. They seem perfectly at home here and they should consider permanently installing a set here.

Throughout the house are paintings and photographs of every day life from the 1940s — Gordon Parks photographs, landmarks in watercolors and paints, pictures of skyscrapers and housing projects alike. An old early ’40s television sits in one room; in the next, a modern widescreen presents a jazz band playing Dizzy Gillespie’s “A Night In Tunisia.” Perhaps the most delectable artifact is its smallest — a little baseball, signed by the World Champion 1941 New York Yankees.

New York 1942 is curated with a modern eye, bringing out the diverse life of the city in the 40s, a perspective that some might have overlooked then. In particular, don’t overlook the somewhat strange Contoured Playground by Isamu Noguchi, a model for a children’s playground the artist wanted to build when he arrived at an Arizona internment camp in May 1942.

Gracie Mansion had an open house this past Sunday, presenting the installation to hundreds of visitors. You can check out the installation yourself by booking a free tour to the historic home. Just visit their website to directly book a spot on the next tour — Tuesdays only for the general public, select Wednesdays for schools — or call 212-676-3060.

I couldn’t take any pictures of the installation inside but I did snag a few from the front lawn!

PODCAST The origin story of Lincoln Center, an elegy to the neighborhood its campus replaced, and a celebration of West Side Story, the film that brings together several aspects of this story in one glorious musical number.

Warm up the orchestra, lace up your dance slippers, and bring the diva to the stage! For our latest show we’re telling the origin story of Lincoln Center, the fine arts campus which assembles some of the city’s finest music and theatrical institutions to create the classiest 16.3 acres in New York City.

However this tale of Robert Moses’ urban renewal philosophies and the survival of storied institutions has a tragic twist. The campus sits on the site of a former neighborhood named San Juan Hill, home to thousands of African American and Puerto Rican families in the mid 20th century. No trace of this neighborhood exists today.

Or, should we say, ALMOST no trace. San Juan Hill exists, at least briefly, with a part of classic American cinema. The Oscar-winning film West Side Story, based on the celebrated musical, was partially filmed here. The movie reflects many realities of the neighborhood and involves talents who would be, ahem, instrumental in Lincoln Center’s continued successes.

The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!

We are now producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every two weeks. We’re also looking to improve the show in other ways and expand in other ways as well — through publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we can only do this with your help!

We are now a member of Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators for as little as a $1 a month.

Please visitour page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are five different pledge levels (and with clever names too — Mannahatta, New Amsterdam, Five Points, Gilded Age, Jazz Age and Empire State). Check them out and consider being a sponsor.

We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far. And the best is yet to come!

The Metropolitan Opera House, in 1904. In the far distance, you see One Times Square being constructed in Longacre Square.

Courtesy MCNY

The New York City Ballet had its first home at City Center while the New York Philharmonic was housed for decades at Carnegie Hall.

Lincoln Square, 1920. This picture is actually taken from the spot where Lincoln Center stands today. The triangular plaza pictured here would later be called Dante Park (a statue to the Italian writer would be placed here a year after this photo was taken). Take note of the 9th Avenue elevated streaking up Columbus Avenue at the bottom of this image.

Arthur Hosking/Museum of the City of New York

And that building to the right? That’s the Hotel Empire which is still standing there today (albeit in a greatly modified form). Here’s an ad for the Empire from 1909.

Robert Moses’ slum clearance plan for San Juan Hill, published in 1956.

Scenes from old San Juan Hill — 1932, 65th Street and Amsterdam Avenue

Charles Von Urban/MCNY

1939 — the stoop scene in San Juan Hill, street unknown

Courtesy MCNY Lee Sievan (1907-1990). San Juan Hill. 1939

An early effort to improve the housing quality in the neighborhood — the Phipps Houses, built in 1906. An interesting New York Times article describes a few residents: “A typical tenant was the steamboat steward Joseph Craig, 36, classed as ‘mulatto’, who was born in Trinidad and arrived in the United States in 1891. Another was the horse breeder Daniel Moore, 43, born in Missouri and married for six years to Tilly Moore, 30, born in Cuba and in the United States since 1892; she worked as a domestic.”

MCNY

The scene in April of 1963. The Philharmonic Hall was already opened by this point. This really brings home the fact that there must have been so much noise pollution due to construction which must have perturbed the organizers of the Philharmonic greatly!

(MATTSON/DAILYNEWS)

The opening sequence of the Oscar-winning film West Side Story was filmed on the streets of San Juan Hill, the structures around the actors clearly boarded up and ready for demolition.

(The website Tom mentioned on the show — Pop Spots NYC — shows a very detailed comparison of film scenes with maps and old photographs. Highly recommended!)

An overhead view of Lincoln Center in 1969 with most of the major venues completed by this point. At the bottom right you see the Empire Hotel, then (moving clockwise around the fountain): the New York State Theater, Damrosch Park, the Metropolitan Opera House, the library and the Vivian Beaumont Theater and Philharmonic Hall.

Getty Images

Philharmonic Hall, later Avery Fisher Hall, then David Geffen Hall — designed by Max Abramovitz.

PODCAST The story of how the Bronx became a part of New York City and the origin of some of the borough’s most famous landmarks.

In the second part of the Bowery Boys’ Bronx Trilogy — recounting the entire history of New York CIty’s northernmost borough — we focus on the years between 1875 and 1945, a time of great evolution and growth for the former pastoral areas of Westchester County.

New York considered the newly annexed region to be of great service to the over-crowded city in Manhattan, a blank canvas for visionary urban planners. Soon great parks and mass transit transformed these northern areas of New York into a sibling (or, perhaps more accurately, a step-child) of the densely packed city to the south.

The Grand Concourse embodied the promise of a new life for thousands of new residents — mostly first and second-generation immigrants, many of them Jewish newcomers. The Hall of Fame of Great Americans was a peculiar tourist attraction that honored America’s greatest. But the first time that many outside New York became aware of the Bronx may have been the arrival in 1923 of New York’s most victorious baseball team, arriving via a spectacular new stadium where sports history would frequently be made.

By the 1930s Parks Commissioner Robert Moses began looking at the borough as a major factor in his grand urban development plans. In some cases, this involved the creation of vital public recreations (like Orchard Beach). Other decisions would mark the beginning of new troubles for the Bronx.

The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!

We are now producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every two weeks. We’re also looking to improve the show in other ways and expand in other ways as well — through publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we can only do this with your help!

We are now a member of Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators for as little as a $1 a month.

Please visitour page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are five different pledge levels (and with clever names too — Mannahatta, New Amsterdam, Five Points, Gilded Age, Jazz Age and Empire State). Check them out and consider being a sponsor.

We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far. And the best is yet to come!

PODCAST REWIND The fascinating story of the Public Theater and Joseph Papp’s efforts to bring Shakespeare to the people. (Episode #85)

What started in a tiny East Village basement grew to become one of New York’s most enduring summer traditions, Shakespeare in the Park, featuring world class actors performing the greatest dramas of the age. But another drama was brewing just as things were getting started. It’s Robert Moses vs. Shakespeare! Joseph Papp vs. the city!

ALSO: Learn how the Public Theater got off the ground and helped save an Astor landmark in the process.

THIS SHOW WAS ORIGINALLY RELEASED ON JUNE 18, 2009 — MANY, MANY YEARS BEFORE LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA AND ‘HAMILTON’ HIT THE PUBLIC STAGE

THIS IS A SPECIAL ILLUSTRATED PODCAST! Chapter headings with images have been embedded in this show, so if your listening device is compatible with AAC/M4A files, just hit play and a variety of pictures should pop up. The audio is superior than the original as well. (This will work as a normal audio file even if the images don’t appear.)

The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!

We are now producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every two weeks. We’re also looking to improve the show in other ways and expand in other ways as well — through publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we can only do this with your help!

We are now a member of Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators for as little as a $1 a month.

Please visitour page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are five different pledge levels (and with clever names too — Mannahatta, New Amsterdam, Five Points, Gilded Age, Jazz Age and Empire State). Check them out and consider being a sponsor.

We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far. And the best is yet to come!

PODCAST REWINDProspect Park, Brooklyn’s biggest public space and home to the borough’s only natural forest, was a sequel for Olmsted and Vaux after their revolutionary creation Central Park. But can these two landscape architects still work together or will their egos get in the way? And what happens to their dream when McKim, Mead and White and Robert Moses get to it?

ALSO: what classic Hollywood movie actor is buried here?

ORIGINALLY RELEASED JUNE 5, 2009

THIS IS A SPECIAL ILLUSTRATED PODCAST! Chapter headings with images have been embedded in this show, so if your listening device is compatible with AAC/M4A files, just hit play and a variety of pictures should pop up. The audio is superior than the original as well. (This will work as a normal audio file even if the images don’t appear.)

The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!

We are now producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every two weeks. We’re also looking to improve the show in other ways and expand in other ways as well — through publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we can only do this with your help!

We are now a member of Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators for as little as a $1 a month.

Please visitour page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are five different pledge levels (and with clever names too — Mannahatta, New Amsterdam, Five Points, Gilded Age, Jazz Age and Empire State). Check them out and consider being a sponsor.

We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far. And the best is yet to come!

The boat house, photographed in 1910, but could very well be a picture from today with an Instagram filter!

MCNY

Anybody for a game of polo on the lawn? Pictured here in 1896.

MCNYMCNY

The entrance to Prospect Park, with Grand Army Plaza (a fairly new edition in this photograph from 1900) and the Mount Prospect Reservoir on the hill.

MCNY

Sheep attending to the meadow in a photograph (from early 20th century) by Robert Bracklow.

MCNY

You can thank McKim, Mead and White and the rising preference of neoclassicism in the Gilded Age for the abundance of statuary in Prospect Park (pictured here in 1903).

MCNY

The park is an arresting synthesis of Olmsted and Vaux’s original vision (as seen in this picturesque view from 1909), McKim, Mead and White’s neoclassical alterations, and Robert Moses’ pragmatic additions from the mid 20th century.

MCNY

A former feature of the lake called Fire Island, named for its flamboyant flowers!

A string of New York City history related shows is hitting the stage this summer and fall, bringing interesting new interpretations to well-known historical events or revitalizing forgotten old shows in curious ways. I’ve had so many recommended to me in the past couple weeks that I thought I’d share the list for those of you who prefer to see a historical tale brought to life at less than Hamilton: the Musical prices. In fact, you can grab tickets to all these shows for half the price of one Broadway show ticket:

You can find a glimpse of New York’s old Yiddish theater world currently playing at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, courtesy the National Yiddish Theater.

“With music by famed Yiddish composer Joseph Rumshinsky, libretto by Frieda Freiman and lyrics by Louis Gilrod, this long-running popular romantic comedy premiered in 1923 and was revived consistently and presented internationally through the 1940’s, but was lost to time following the Second World War. In 1984, Dr. Michael Ochs, former head of the music library at Harvard unearthed an original vocal score and manuscript for Di Goldene Kale and spent a number of years translating, researching and reconstructing this nearly-forgotten treasure.”

The Fringe Festival, beginning this Friday and now in its 20th year, always offers up a buffet of productions that are earnest, captivating, hilarious, head-scratching and oftentimes strange. Fans of our podcast on the murder of Stanford White may want to explore Dementia Americana, a depiction of the tragic events which led to the tragedy in 1906.

“Sex! Murder! Insanity! John Philip Sousa! All this and more in a darkly comic and appallingly relevant play that explores the upsetting and true events surrounding Evelyn Nesbit, Harry K Thaw, and the 1906 murder of famed architect Stanford White.”

“The year is 1936, the country is in the throes of the Great Depression. Times are hard and people are desperate. Though illegal, secret traveling sideshows were ever popular distractions. These exclusive gatherings would take place in secret locations all over the country, often in rented houses to avoid the eye of the police. Professor Mysterium invites you to join him for an night you will never forget at a secret location in Manhattan.

The exclusive event will only welcome 50 patrons per night to the secret sideshow. Tickets are $50 and include 2 drinks at the bar before and during the event. Audience members are encouraged to come in 1930’s attire. Doors open promptly at 7:30pm and the event begins at 8pm.”

I’m shocked that the story of Mary A. Shanley, New York city police detective, has not been turned into a movie or a television show by now. (You can read my blog post from 2010 about her dramatic exploits.) A new off-Broadway play Dead Shot Mary seeks to rectify her egregious absence from pop culture.

“A pioneer for women in law enforcement, Mary Shanley joined the NYPD in 1931, quickly becoming a Gotham all-star and tabloid sensation. During her 30-year career, she worked undercover to achieve a staggering 1000 career arrests, became the fourth woman in history to make detective 1st grade, and then nearly lost it all. Capturing her at a major crossroads of career, identity, and love — her most elusive culprit of all — DEAD SHOT MARY grapples with the legend of this trail blazer, a maverick, and a true New York original.”

The show debuts on September 9th and runs through October. Visit their website for more details or here to order tickets.

WILD PARTY

A boozy revival from B-Side Productions (the terrific Jasper Grant was our musical director at last year’s 54 Below event with The Ensemblist), luxuriating in a 1920s decadent Manhattan party. Based on a 1928 poem by Joseph Moncure Marsh with the line: “Queenie was a blonde and her age stood still/And she danced twice a day in vaudeville. ”

The Black Crook, considered the very first Broadway musical, is a strange curiosity of the Gilded Age, a show from 1866 that seems hard to imagine today. Back in 2007, I wrote the following description: “Young Rodolphe is enslaved by a sorceror Hertzog, who must grant the Devil the soul of one innocent every New Years Eve. Rodolphe saves a white dove from peril which just happens to be a good witch in disguise — Stalacta, Fairy Queen of the Golden Realm — who rescues him and sends all the bad guys straight to Hell. Damn it, why hasnt this thing been revived?”

Nine years later, it is indeed being revived! If you are a history AND a musical nut, I’m assuming your head just exploded right now.

“On September 12, 2016, The Black Crook will celebrate its 150th anniversary, marking 150 years of the American Musical. From the rubble of the Civil War, The Black Crook emerged taking an entire country by storm; an unprecedented commercial juggernaut that contributed, whether first musical or no, to a popular melting-pot entertainment that blended art both high and low. The Black Crook is an origin story for the spectacle that is America, and 150 years after the fact, it will be exhumed once again.

The show pulls a little bit of a Shuffle Along! trick, blending the original music with a “behind the scenes” about the show’s playwright Charles M. Barras. Performances begin September 19 at the Abrons Art Center in the Lower East Side, and runs through October 7th. More information here.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs — Obviously you should start with Jacobs’ opus on how the American city works (well, at least the city of the 1960s). She has a clear, approachable and pragmatic way of looking at urban problems. You’ll also notice immediately how modern city planners have used some of the ideas she’s described.

Wrestling With Moses by Anthony Flint — Perhaps the most succinct book on the specific crises which pitted Robert Moses with Jacobs, a breezy and engaging tale of New York City in the 1950s and ’60s.

Jane Jacobs: Urban Visionary by Alice Sparberg Alexiou — If you’d like a good biography on Jacobs, try this enjoyable read (published in 2006, the year of Jacobs’ death) that gives an overview of her life and career.

Becoming Jane Jacobs by Peter Laurence — If you’re looking for something more recent, this brand new biography uniquely explores the origins of how she developed her ideas of urban places. Even if you’ve read any of the books listed above, Laurence’s book goes more deeply into her many influences.

The Battle For Gotham by Roberta Brandes Gratz — For even more expansive look at the legacies of both Moses and Jacobs, especially in the proceeding decades. Gratz takes specific aim at more recent projects in New York in a very personalized way.

The Village by John Strausbaugh — A wide-lens history of Greenwich Village, Strausbaugh spends a great amount of time looking at how Jacobs assisted in the salvation of her neighborhood, and how these preservation battles interlocked with the culture of the day.

The Power Broker by Robert Caro — Jacobs famously doesn’t even make an appearance in Caro’s legendary, barn-burning biography, but the book remains essential reading for anybody interested in mid-century America.

————–

Or burrow your way through the New York Times archives of material on the battles waged by Jane Jacobs and Village community activists against the city. Start with these:

Shopping Scarce In City Projects “Most of the 350,000 New Yorkers living in public housing must go outside the projects for the loaf of bread, the quart of milk, the daily newspaper and the sociability of the candy store, coffee shop or tavern.” (June 16, 1957)

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of her birth (May 4), the Municipal Art Society, with funding by the Rockefeller Foundation, has been hosting a series of events this year. From the website #JJ100:

“The celebration will pay tribute to Jane Jacobs on the 100-year anniversary of her birth by highlighting self-organized activities and events that embody Jane’s lasting legacy in cities around the world.”

Starting with Jane’s Walk in May, and culminating at the Habitat III Conference in Quito, Ecuador, Jane Jacobs at 100 will promote self-organized Jacobsian programming and projects taking place in New York and in cities around the world.” Keep checking in at their website for more information. And of course Jane’s Walk arrives in May!

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Meanwhile The Center for the Living Cityis taking a fascinating approach to their celebration of Jacobs’ legacy. Check out their dedicated page Jane’s 100th for a list of events and unique objectives. Including getting Jane Jacobs on a postage stamp! (How is she not on a postage stamp? Harry Potter has a postage stamp!) Author Peter Laurence has set up a petition for this that you obviously must sign.

PODCAST The story of Jane Jacobs, the urban activist and writer who changed the way we live in cities and her fights to preserve Greenwich Village in the 1950s and ’60s.

Washington Square Park torn in two. The West Village erased and re-written. Soho, Little Italy and the Lower East Side ripped asunder by an elevated highway. This is what would have happened in New York City in the 1950s and 60s if not for enraged residents and community activists, lead and inspired by a woman from Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Jane Jacobs is one of the most important urban thinkers of the 20th century. As a young woman, she fell in love with Greenwich Village (and met her husband there) which contained a unique alchemy of life and culture that one could only find in an urban area. As an adroit and intuitive architectural writer, she formed ideas about urban development that flew in the face of mainstream city planning. As a community activist, she fought for her own neighborhood and set an example for other embattled districts in New York City.

Her legacy is fascinating, often radical and not always positive for cities in 2016. But she is an extraordinary New Yorker, and for our 200th episode, we had to celebrate this remarkable woman on the 100th anniversary of her birth.

FEATURING: Mrs. Jacobs herself in clips interspersed through the show.

The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!

We are now producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every two weeks. We’re also looking to improve the show in other ways and expand in other ways as well — through publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we can only do this with your help!

We are now a member of Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators for as little as a $1 a month.

Please visitour page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are five different pledge levels (and with clever names too — Mannahatta, New Amsterdam, Five Points, Gilded Age, Jazz Age and Empire State). Check them out and consider being a sponsor.

We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far. And the best is yet to come!

Jacobs at the White Horse Tavern, sometime in the 1960s. Jane lived on the block!

Photography by Cervin Robinson/New York Times. Visit his website for more extraordinary images of New York City (http://cervinrobinson.com/)

Jacobs in Washington Square Park (though I believe this is 1963 and not during the 1958 protest).

Fred W. McDarrah/Getty Images

Washington Square Park in 1935. The 1958 activists were so successful in their goal of saving the park that they were able to banish automobile traffic from it entirely.

New York Parks Department

What Moses had planned for the park:

NYPL

Robert Moses, pictured here in Brooklyn in 1956. Although he frequently situated as the arch-nemesis to Jane Jacobs, in fact they were rarely in the same room together. Their battles were fought in the press and in City Hall.

AP

Jacobs presenting damning evidence about the proposed West Village demolition, taken at their main headquarters the Lion’s Head, in 1961 at the corner of Hudson and Charles Streets.

Jane Jacobs and her son Ned in 1961, during the West Village protests. The Xs were placed on buildings to be condemned. Activists wore sunglasses with Xs on the lenses in protest.

The New York World’s Fair opened for its second and last season on April 21, 1965. The grand opening the previous year had been rocky indeed — protests, rain, even a parking lot riot. Thankfully the second season was met with beautiful weather and abundant crowds. In order to jazz it up a bit — not too much, just enough to increase ticket sales — Robert Moses authorized a host of changes, great and small. Some of the exciting guest stars and new features that awaited entrants to the 1965 World’s Fair that day included:

Opening the World’s Fair that day: Mayor Willie Brandt of West Berlin; Robert Moses naturally; Vice President Hubert Humphreys; Chief Justice Earl Warren and New York Mayor Robert Wagner (from NYT file photo)

— Vice President Hubert Humphrey took a leisurely stroll through the fair, creating quite a stir. “He’s a walking pavilion,” cracked one observer. His entourage included Chief Justice Earl Warren. During his visit to the New York State Pavilion, a riot almost ensued. “Children cried out in terror, parents shouted, toes were trampled, cameras clicked.”

Courtesy Life Magazine

— Hall of Presidents: Appropriately, Humphrey’s appearance coincided with the opening of some striking new exhibits within the United States Pavilion (which had opened the previous year) featuring memorabilia from over a dozen American presidents, including original copies of the Bill of Rights, Washington’s inaugural and farewell addresses and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Meanwhile, a crude Animatronic version of Lincoln continued to greet visitors.

Photo by Bill Cotter/NYT

— Under The Dome: One of the most anticipated new arrivals to the fair was the Winston Churchill Center, a tribute to the former British Prime Minister who had died in January. “Included in exhibits documenting Sir Winston’s career are some of his own paintings, and photographs of him at various periods in his life. Also on display are a replica of Churchill’s study at Chartwell; models of Blenheim Palace, where he was born, and Bladon churchyard, where he lies buried; and an exhibit of his personal effects, including his desk, which once belonged to Disraeli.”

— MORE FOOD: According to the New York Times, “the number of restaurants has been increased from 111 to 198. This means the fair can now serve more than 38,000 person simultaneously, or about 8,000 more than last year. ” Certainly there was food to be found at the Theater of Food-Festival of Gas Pavilion?

— The Gutenberg Bible: If you were craving a more spiritual exhibition, look no further than the latest resident of the Vatican Pavilion, one of six existing copies of the Gutenberg Bible. Also on site: The Pope’s jeweled tiara. These two items were joining the Pieta, perhaps the most historically significant work of art at the fair.

— New Dinosaurs at Sinclair’s Dinoland : And not just any dinosaurs, but automated dinosaurs that could roar. “Last year we were of the school that dinosaurs had no vocal cords,” said the exhibit’s fuddyduddy spokesman. “This year we are in a new school.”

— Kiddie Phone Center : As a way to get children excited about using the phone, Bell Telephone opened a Phone Fun Fair featuring a variety of wacky telephone games. “The center has three tot-sized phone booths where a youngster, by dialing, can get a pleasant message from one of six Disney characters, or a commercial message from an operator.” BONUS FUN: “A voice Mirror lets you hear how you sound on the telephone. Weather-phones allow you to dial Weather Bureau information in selected cities. Quiz games, solar battery display — and much more!”

— People To People Fiesta: The youth oriented People to People International is a youth outreach non-profit started by President Eisenhower in 1956. “Africa, Asia, Europe, as well as the Americas, are represented in a “village” of kiosks which display and sell a variety of folk art. Admission is charged; proceeds go to a center for world understanding.” The ‘fiesta’ “will stress folk singing and dancing in the setting of colorful tents.”

— MARS! One of the more innovative new exhibits was located in Space Park with a focus on Mariner 4, a spacecraft launched the previous year that would successfully take the first images of Mars. Photos sent by Mariner 4 would be displayed here as they came in on July 14-15. Above: An image of Mars sent by the orbiting spacecraft.

— Kensington Runestone: And finally no trip to the fair in 1965 would be complete without a viewing of the mysterious Kensington Runestone, an ancient stone marking found in Minnesota in 1898. Some believe this to be a link to 14th century Swedish explorers although how it got to Minnesota is anybody’s guess. It was debunked as a hoax in 1910, and yet here it is at the World’s Fair! It was accompanied, naturally, by the 28-foot-tall Viking that you see below:

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